Voces del Prado

The satisfaction of work well done vs. emotion

Matías Díaz Padrón, Technical Advisor and Head of the Department of Conservation of Flemish Painting and the Northern Schools up to 1700, 1970-2005

At the Prado we are lucky to be able to work with the CSIC extensively, which means working on works from the Prado but likewise on works from abroad. I am obviously grateful for having been surrounded by works of art at the Prado, having been able to study them and contribute to further discovery. Not only at the Prado, but everything I have found in publications outside Spain, at the Hermitage and the Louvre. I focused on my interests, on research, with the satisfaction of conquering things that did not stir up any emotion in me. For instance I felt nothing when not too long ago, five or six years ago, they gave me an award at the United Nations for the book "Van Dyck in Spain". Most of the awards were for people from the Prado, as you can imagine, and when they called me to tell me, they called from Vienna, "Do you know the award you just won?" The lady who told me asked, "Don't you feel excited about it?" Well not really, what else can I say. I think that when so much hard work goes into what you do, there is really no gift in anything you get, maybe that's why. I've got the burden of completing such and such project off my back, but I feel no special satisfaction. I'm often satisfied if it makes my friends happy, because some friends are happy for me, but the fact is that I've never been touched by emotion.